
Hello Box: Culturilazation of HelloFresh expansion to South East Asia
Client: Hello Fresh
Demographic: 30-50yrs, 80% women
Regions of operations: USA, Europe, Australia
Hello Fresh is a meal box service founded in Berlin, it provides customers with pre-portioned ingredients and instruction cards that allow them to quickly put together a freshly cooked meal with little preparation time or waste.
Demographic: 30-50yrs, 80% women
Regions of operations: USA, Europe, Australia
Hello Fresh is a meal box service founded in Berlin, it provides customers with pre-portioned ingredients and instruction cards that allow them to quickly put together a freshly cooked meal with little preparation time or waste.
Aim: Conduct cultural research into SEA (South East Aisa) to understand how Hello Fresh’s food service could adapt to the local context.
To allocate the service into SEA market, Hello Box, an ingredient vending machine service was designed. The platform collects half-cooked or processed ingredients and packages them into meal preportion from local markets and restaurants everyday freshly, and people collect these ingredient bags from Hello Box machines near public transport stations on their way home.
To allocate the service into SEA market, Hello Box, an ingredient vending machine service was designed. The platform collects half-cooked or processed ingredients and packages them into meal preportion from local markets and restaurants everyday freshly, and people collect these ingredient bags from Hello Box machines near public transport stations on their way home.
Research Objectives

Cultural Research Methods
Conducting field research in South East Asia was not available for the project (hard to access). Therefore, Interview,
Systematic self-observation (SSO) and Diary study were chosen to be feasible research methods according to the nature of the surveyed subjects (see following evaluation table). To decrease the participators’ workload, a simplified research approach that combines the methods of SSO and diary study was designed.
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Method 1: Semi-structured Interview
Remote/ Face-to-face.
One person interviewing, one taking notes.
Interviewing through the interview guidance map to avoid being too strict to the exact interview questions (Interview questions designed only for reference). Ask or transform the questions according to the actual situation, and pay attention to whether the questions has covered the directions/aspects on the map. This makes the whole process more comfortable and natural for the interviewees, and maximize the extraction of unanticipated information behind the talk.
Considerations
- We only asked each participant to record one meal a day because we didn't want to overload them with work. But we want to get as much insight into each record as possible.
- We mainly gather information about people's weekday meals for more regular insights. At the same time, we require some weekend behavior to enrich the situation, to get more comprehensive data through comparison, and to draw inspiration from specific scenes.
Method 2 - Self observation and Record
Duration: 3 days - 2 weekday & 1 weekend day
Each day we will ask participants to:
1. Take 3 photos of your dinner and preparing process
2. Answer the following questions, can answer with photos:
- How you access the food?
- How are they prepared/cooked?
- How you eat them (where, when, with whom, how to plate/eat/share)
- What do you do after the meal (clean, deal with leftovers/ingredients, etc)
- Your feeling towards the meal and the process (like it or not? Relax/tiring/convenient/etc)

Research Samples

Primary research conducted by all the team members with tasks spreaded equally

Appeal to Southeast Asian client base

Slide produced by Sade
Research Insights




Insights analyzed by the whole team
Analysis Process

f4analyse was used as the coding, comapring and analysing tool



Design Intervention: Hello Box Service


Hello Box is ingredient vending machines run by Hello Fresh in SEA. Fresh half-cooked or processed ingredients are collected by the platform staff and are packaged into meal bags (Fresh Bag) from local markets and restaurants everyday. People collect these ingredient bags from Hello Box machines near public transport stations on their way home. People choose and purchase ingredient bags through the digital touch screen on the machine.
Ingredients in each Fresh Bag may contain
- half-cooked/processed food (eg. marinated chicken nuggets)
- fresh ingredients including spice boxes
- prepared sauces
- ingredients for specific cultural dish
Each Fresh Bag allocates for a meal of specific kinds of food, whether cultual unique or more casual. Customers choose by themselves.
Based on the cultural insight, in general won’t provide cooking instructions, which allows people to cook based on their own experiences or in their own ways, and is more convenient.


Use the Hello Fresh App South East Asian version to find Hello Box machines on your way home, and navigate. Numbers of the Fresh Bag can be checked on the map, as well as categories of the meal.
All the purchase will be recorded. The resources where the ingredients are from and are processed is also showing on the app (as well as on the machine screen). Rate each purchase to encourage the food providers.
Simplified Service Blueprint

User Journey Map

Team Members︎
Brook | Joe | Sade | Tori
Brook | Joe | Sade | Tori